A special event to celebrate the publication of a book about former St. Thomas Dean Bruce Kramer’s battle with ALS will be held Wednesday, March 25, in O’Shaughnessy Educational Center auditorium.

Minnesota Public Radio News host Kerri Miller will lead a 7 p.m. conversation between Kramer and MPR’s Cathy Wurzer, authors of We Know How This Ends: Living while Dying. They will discuss the making of the book, their work together and the life lessons found in living fully through loss.

Books will be available for purchase at the event, and a book-signing reception will follow in the OEC foyer. Doors to the auditorium will open at 6:30 p.m. The event is free with online registration.

Forthcoming in April from the University of Minnesota Press, We Know How This Ends details discoveries by Kramer and Wurzer as they embarked on a journalistic process to document his struggle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disease.

For Kramer, the progressive illness diagnosed in December 2010 brought the loss of physical health and a leave of absence as dean of the College of Education, Leadership and Counseling at St. Thomas, where he had taught or served as an administrator since 1996.

Wurzer, host of “Morning Edition” on MPR and “Almanac” on Twin Cities Public Television, began a series of more than 30 broadcast reports in 2011 on Kramer’s efforts to deal with ALS. She since has lost her father to a debilitating battle with dementia. For Kramer and Wurzer, the experiences were life changing and transformative, leading to their friendship and the book.

“Though we do know how this story will end, the surprising, revelatory journey that Bruce and Cathy take us on is full of insight, wisdom, sorrow, and joy,” wrote Dr. Jon Hallberg, a physician and MPR’s health and medical analyst, in a testimonial. “This important, beautiful book should be required reading for all patients, caregivers, and clinicians to better understand that even while dying, there can be growth and peace and exuberant life.”

Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest and a 1983 St. Thomas alumnus, called We Know How This Ends “a moving tale that teaches us more about living well than any self-help book ever can. Security and immortality are both superstitions; the best we can do is make an adventure of our lives. In this exquisite book, Bruce finds adventure in the most unlikely of places: the death sentence that is ALS.”

Kramer has written Dis Ease Diary, a blog in which he shares news about his condition and his sentiments, since March 2011. He also spoke about his fight against ALS in a St. Thomas magazine story in fall 2012.

The book publication event is sponsored by MPR News, St. Thomas, the University of Minnesota Press, HealthPartners and the ALS Association of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.

The University of St. Thomas’ College of Education, Leadership and Counseling has added two new programs to the graduate-level, special-education degree and certificate programs that it offers online. Students now can earn a master’s degree and/or a teaching license in the two programs: Academic Behavioral Strategist and Developmental Disabilities.

St. Thomas began offering special-education courses 40 years ago and today offers on-campus programs in six areas of licensure. A year ago it began to offer its special-education courses online. The first program, in autism spectrum disorders, began with 12 graduate students and now enrolls 65 students from 22 states and from throughout Minnesota.

“The online programs allow us to reach students nationally and in greater Minnesota,” said Dr. Terri Vandercook, chair of the Special Education and Gifted Education Department. “We are focused on the quality of the programs to ensure they provide students with the same rigor and relevance as our on-campus programs. All students graduate with the knowledge, skills and dispositions required of professionals in the field of special education.”

Class-time learning in the programs is 100 percent online. However, there are more than 100 hours of applied-learning assignments. Students have the opportunity to complete their clinical practice in their present jobs, as long as the setting meets program requirements.

The programs’ online components include streaming-video lectures, live class sessions and downloadable course materials. The programs’ virtual community includes professor-hosted discussion boards, live chat rooms, email, social networking, group study and sharing, and 24-hour technical support. The online classroom is accessible from any Internet-ready device, including tablets and mobile phones.

Classes start every eight weeks, with the next session starting March 9.

St. Thomas’ online programs are offered in partnership with University Alliance, a division of Tampa-based Bisk Education. Alliance also partners with universities such as Villanova, Notre Dame, Scranton, Florida Tech and Michigan State to deliver online degree and professional certificate programs.

More information about the St. Thomas programs is available at this website.

Here are three additional websites with information about St. Thomas’ special education programs:

Special Education Faculty speak to the online program offerings in the SPED montage video.

Nine TEDx talks dealing with the future of education that were given at the University of St. Thomas on Oct. 15 are now available online.

The talks, sponsored by St. Thomas’ College of Education, Leadership and Counseling, can be seen here.

The experts in the field of education who shared their thoughts in six minutes or less that evening were:

Kasim AbdurRazzaq, a native of St. Paul who conducts community and organization dialogues on race and power

Adam Katz, a special education teacher who is working on his academic behavior strategist license

Dr. Bill Keilty, who holds a master’s in gifted education and doctorate in educational leadership and developed the unique Lighthouse Program in Spring Lake Park Schools

Dr. J. Roxanne Prichard, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience who teaches and studies the topic of sleep and health

Tom Rademacher, a high school English teacher at the FAIR School in Minneapolis who is this year’s Minnesota Teacher of the Year

Cordell Steiner, a fifth grader at the Matoska International Elementary School in White Bear Lake who shared his ideas about using technology and games to personalize education

Catherine Thimmesh, an award-winning children’s book author who talked about creativity in the classroom

Dr. Artika Tyner, an author and CELC faculty member who trains graduate students to serve as social engineers

Charles Vickers, principal at St. Peter Claver in St. Paul

The online collection also includes a saxophone solo performance by Steve Cole, a musician, writer, producer and member of the St. Thomas music faculty, and a presentation by Desdamona, a five-time Minnesota Music Award winner who delivers her lyrics and spoken word to traditional and nontraditional classroom spaces throughout the Midwest and beyond.

Nine diverse presenters in the field of education will share their thoughts on the topic of “Taking Action to Reimagine Education” at a TEDx event that will run from 6 to 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 15, in Woulfe Alumni Hall in the Anderson Student Center on the St. Paul campus of the University of St. Thomas.

The St. Thomas College of Education, Leadership and Counseling is hosting the TEDx evening filled with engaging and inspiring six-minute talks from individuals on how they would take action to reimagine education. These talks will focus on ideas in the classroom and in the community and range from the scientific to fostering creativity.

The event, which will include music and refreshments, is free and open to the public. Registration is required. To register, and for more information, visit tedxuniversityofstthomas.com .

Registration opens at noon Thursday, Sept. 18.

Offering their insights that night will be:

Kasim AbdurRazzaq, a native of St. Paul, conducts community and organization dialogues on race and power.

Adam Katz, a special education teacher, is working on his academic behavior strategist license.

Dr. Bill Keilty, with a master’s in gifted education and doctorate in educational leadership, developed the unique Lighthouse Program in Spring Lake Park Schools.

Dr. J. Roxanne Prichard, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience, teaches and studies the topic of sleep and health.

Tom Rademacher, a high school English teacher at the FAIR School in Minneapolis, is this year’s Minnesota Teacher of the Year.

Cordell Steiner, a fifth grader at the Matoska International Elementary School in White Bear Lake, will share his ideas about using technology and games to personalize education.

Catherine Thimmesh, an award-winning children’s book author, will talk about creativity in the classroom.

Dr. Artika Tyner, an author and CELC faculty member, trains graduate students to serve as social engineers.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. The Oct. 15 event is called TEDxUniversityofStThomas, where x = independently organized TED event. At the TEDxUniversityofStThomas event, TEDTalks video and live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, including the one at St. Thomas, are self-organized.

About TED

TED is an annual event where some of the world’s leading thinkers and doers are invited to share what they are most passionate about. “TED” stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design — three broad subject areas that are, collectively, shaping our future. And in fact, the event is broader still,showcasing ideas that matter in any discipline. Attendees have called it “the ultimate brain spa” and “a four-day journey into the future.” The diverse audience — CEOs, scientists, creatives, philanthropists — is almost as extraordinary as the speakers, who have included Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Frank Gehry, Paul Simon, Sir Richard Branson, Philippe Starck and Bono.

TED was first held in Monterey, California, in 1984. In 2001, Chris Anderson’s Sapling Foundation acquired TED from its founder, Richard Saul. In recent years, TED has expanded to include an international conference, TEDGlobal; media initiatives, including TED Talks and TED.com; and the TED Prize.

President Julie Sullivan urged St. Thomas faculty and staff on Tuesday to join her on an “imaginary exercise” and envision what the university will look like five to 10 years from now.

Sullivan used her annual academic convocation address to offer her interpretation of a working vision statement that has guided strategic planning efforts since last December. She asked questions such as, “How do interdisciplinary inquiry and intercultural understanding contribute to preparing students?” and shared her points of view. Her final question was, “How bold will we be in charting our course towards this vision?”

“In keeping with the inspiration of our founder, Archbishop John Ireland, we must have the courage and conviction to be bold,” she replied. “This is a university that has never been afraid to be bold. We must let this infiltrate us at every level, and we cannot be stymied by ‘fear of failure.’ We must actively nourish and sustain a culture of innovation in everything we do.”

Sullivan then embarked on her “imaginary exercise,” asking the O’Shaughnessy Educational Center auditorium audience to imagine it was watching a slide show as she described images of the St. Thomas of the future. She concluded by again quoting Ireland, who once began a speech wishing he had “the eye of a prophet to see countless generations into the future” but he ended it saying, “But no prophet’s eye is needed, for as we will it, so shall the future be.”

“It is no different today,” Sullivan said. “It is in our hands to create the future that we collectively imagine for St. Thomas, the Twin Cities, our country, and our world ‘For as we will it, so shall the future be.’”

Here is the complete text of Sullivan’s remarks:

Introduction

Good afternoon!

I am delighted to have the opportunity to address you as we embark on the 2014-15 academic year at the University of St. Thomas.

First, I add my greetings and warm welcome to all of those recognized by Provost Plumb and our deans and to all of you who joined us today. I am especially thankful for the presence of our adjunct faculty members. Adjunct faculty have long had a critically important role in educating our students. I am grateful for your dedication and hard work and your decision to work with my administration to better meet your needs and further integrate you into our community.

A year ago, I stood here before you for the first time and recalled how so many people had told me that the university was “poised” to achieve new levels of impact, relevance, and recognition, and I asked you to join me in what I called “our journey.”

One year later, we are on that journey – and we are on it with great resolve and ambition and great opportunity and excitement. We have made significant progress in articulating our vision, and we have embarked on a strategic planning process that has engaged the entire community. Hundreds of you participated in subcommittee meetings and forums, ably led by Drs. Corrine Carvalho and Michael Cogan, and I want to ask them to stand and thank them both for their outstanding leadership of our steering committee and this effort.

A Vision

Last fall, in anticipation of our strategic planning process, we reaffirmed our seven convictions and our strong mission statement grounded in our identity as a Catholic university. While our mission is timeless, we must deliberately review how we make this mission come alive for each new generation of students and concurrently envision what academic excellence means for our ever-changing world. Thus, we developed a new working vision statement that expresses our evolving aspirations, and the strategic plan will plot the course we take to journey towards this vision.

Today, I would like to focus on our vision and the strategic questions that we are wrestling with as we develop the plan for realizing this vision. While our vision statement continues to be tweaked as we move through our strategic planning process, it articulates well the essence of the “star” we are shooting for and reads:

“The University of St. Thomas, a Catholic comprehensive urban university, is known nationally for academic excellence that prepares students for the complexities of the contemporary world. Through disciplinary and interdisciplinary inquiry and deep intercultural understanding, we inspire students to lead, work and serve with the skills and empathy vital to creating a world of greater opportunity, justice, and care.”

Strategic Questions/Considerations

There are a number of strategic questions and considerations the strategic plan must address in charting our course towards the fulfillment of this vision. Many focus on our interpretation of the key words of the vision statement.

• What are the complexities of the contemporary world?

What type of future world are we preparing our graduates for? The one thing I am certain of is that it will be very different from our world today, and it will change at dizzying speeds.

The book The Second Machine Age, by leaders of the MIT Center for Digital Business, provides interesting insights. The authors say we are entering the second machine age of history. The first was ushered in by the Industrial Revolution, and in the second, advances in technology are doing for mental power what the steam engine did for muscle power.

The technologies are not necessarily new, but their power and ubiquitous nature are. Businesses have been using computers for more than 50 years, the PC is 30 and the Internet just turned 20. However, now the power, speed and cost of digital technologies has advanced to the point where we are entering an age when their full force will be achieved. In the next 24 months, this planet will add more computer power than it did in all previous history.

In this Second Machine Age:

Everything is digitized. Documents, news, music, photos, video, maps and social networks are on demand and at our fingertips, 24 x 7, any time, and any place.

Everything is connected. Powerful and cheap processors, sensors and transmitters allow the Internet to connect not just people and computers but also things – televisions, thermostats, cars and countless other items. Things constantly measure, sense, and transmit and receive information. It is estimated that 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020. And the “internet of things” will mean far more than just remote control of devices from your mobile phone. Just last weekend I was reading about a local company that speculated it could produce a basketball equipped with an inertial measurement unit that connects to the Internet and is sold with a monthly subscription so purchasers can download and see all of the shots they have taken.

Everybody has access. More people are becoming connected to a common digital network. The World Bank estimates three-quarters of the seven billion people on Earth have access to a mobile phone, and 75 percent of those people are in the developing world. Most soon will have access to smart phones, so it is just a matter of time before everyone is connected to each other and to the digital world. This will bring billions more people into the community of knowledge creators, problem solvers and innovators; billions more people who can work together to better understand and improve our world.

All of this, of course, will cause economic disruption and reallocation of wealth and income. New industries will emerge with huge returns to the innovators who created them, and old sectors will disappear with job loss and dislocation for others.

The nature of work is changing. The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that today’s learner will have 10-14 jobs by the age of 38. Furthermore, the self-employed (freelancers, independent contractors, and temp workers) currently constitute one-third of all U.S. workers and are expected to rise to 40 percent, or 60 million people, by 2020.

The obvious conclusion from this glimpse into the contemporary world we are preparing our graduates for is that we cannot provide a “box” of knowledge with a shelf life of even a few years. We must provide our students foundations of knowledge, learning frameworks and, perhaps most importantly, the skills and capacity for continuous learning and discovery in this constantly changing world.

• What skills are necessary to prepare students for the complexities of the contemporary world?

In a world where information is readily accessible by anyone, it is the wise use of this information that is critical for human flourishing. Skills such as synthesis, analytical and innovative thinking, creative problem solving, and ethical reasoning and action will be increasingly required. In addition, adaptability and flexibility, curiosity, communication, collaboration, initiative, and confidence will be critical. While we have historically labeled many of these as liberal arts skills, they also could be accurately described today as entrepreneurial skills or the characteristics of an entrepreneurial mindset.

Our learning experiences must increasingly focus on developing skills that students need for a lifetime of changing work. Our curriculum will emphasize rigorous and active learning and discovery, appropriate classroom technologies and formats, and partnerships with businesses and agencies for contextual and applied learning. All students must have opportunities to further develop their entrepreneurial and innovative thinking.

• How do interdisciplinary inquiry and intercultural understanding contribute to preparing students for the contemporary world?

The contemporary world is becoming increasingly interconnected. There are fewer and fewer single discipline problems and even fewer single country problems. Our biggest challenges are interdisciplinary and global. We must prepare our students to be connectors, to look beyond boundaries and across silos to find synergies and solutions. We also must prepare our students to engage the world; to be global citizens who effectively make human connections in ways that demonstrate understanding, empathy, and respect.

I expect our curriculum to become more integrated and emphasize interdisciplinary approaches and diverse perspectives. There will be a greater emphasis on multidisciplinary and thematic teaching and research.

• How will our Catholic character be actualized?

We will continue to integrate into our curriculum and co-curricular programs Catholic intellectual tradition and social thought. The university must continue to promote the integration of knowledge; active dialogue between faith and culture; interreligious and ecumenical dialogue; the development of morally responsible persons; and the spiritual formation of all community members.

The fundamental principles of respect for the dignity of all human persons and their unity as part of one human family will animate everything we do on our campus, in our communities, and across the globe. We will demonstrate our ethic of care to all we encounter and in all that we do.

We will build upon our strengths in social entrepreneurship, sustainability, social justice, service learning, and globalization to help students more effectively engage with diverse local and global communities. We will reconfigure a culture of “service” to those deemed “underprivileged” to a culture of collaboration and mutual engagement that transforms all participants and actualizes respect and empathy.

• What does it mean to be comprehensive? How large will we be? What programs will we add? How will we retain focus?

As a result of the leadership and hard work of Father Dease, many others of you in this auditorium, and those who came before you, the College of St. Thomas evolved into a strong, comprehensive university. We have the capacity to revamp and create new areas of study to address current and future societal and workforce needs. We have a rich array of building blocks that can be combined across disciplinary boundaries to create new interdisciplinary programs focused on the needs of tomorrow.

In the spirit of one university, we will eliminate any organizational barriers that inhibit our ability to cooperate and co-create across disciplines and units. We also will choose areas to expand or build upon, such as health care and wellness, where there is growing job demand and we have opportunities to create programs that define outcomes in terms of the dignity of the whole person and principles of integration, efficiency and access.

But we can’t just keep adding programs; we also must be willing to revamp or eliminate programs because we do not intend to grow our residential population to the size of many state and public institutions. For it is both our comprehensive nature and our manageable size that make collaboration so rich and possible at St. Thomas. We must maintain our conviction of personal attention. I have heard from numerous alumni how the personal attention of our faculty and staff inspired them to achieve more and to lead lives of great impact. Thus, I expect our undergraduate population to stay approximately the same or grow gradually and our graduate and on-line populations to grow more rapidly so that we reach and sustain a population of 10,000 to 12,000 full-time equivalent students.

• How do we better leverage our urban location in the Twin Cities?

With our campuses in St. Paul and Minneapolis, we are located in the Twin Cities, one of the most desirable places to live and work in America. We are blessed with a vibrant business community, a strengthening entrepreneurial ecosystem, strong faith communities, creative arts and culture, and many opportunities for recreational and spectator sports. Urban locations historically have been a draw for professional graduate study and are becoming an increasing draw for prospective undergraduate students.

We can provide greater value to and garner greater benefit from this community by forming stronger collaborations and partnerships with organizations in the Twin Cities. For example, we can contribute to narrowing and sustaining the elimination of the achievement gap, as well as enhance our own diversity, by forming more partnerships with schools, churches, and communities of color and underrepresented populations. We can enhance every Tommie’s learning experience by creating more opportunities to learn and work in context of the cities’ robust business organizations. We also can enhance our student life by further connecting students to the cities’ arts, culture, faith, and recreational opportunities. Ultimately, our aim is to identify, recruit, and develop the next creative class of workers and citizens for the Twin Cities.

• What does it mean to be known nationally for academic excellence?

Does this mean we must move to Division I athletics? No. Does this mean we must create more research-based doctoral programs? No. This does mean we want to be more visible to prospective students, high school counselors, alumni, and employers beyond Minnesota and the Upper Midwest. We want our reputation for academic excellence to continue to strengthen and extend beyond these geographic boundaries.

This will require clarifying our messaging to students, employers, alumni, and donors about the value of a St. Thomas education and the value of investing in St. Thomas. We will need to invest in marketing and branding; leverage the energy, enthusiasm, and connections of our 100,000+ living alumni; and expand our resources devoted to student recruiting in strategic national and international locations. This also will require a change in our thinking of who we compare ourselves to for benchmarking purposes. We must consider as our peer schools other similar national universities, such as other comprehensive Catholic universities with national visibility and strong teaching missions.

• How will our student profile change?

As we become better known for academic excellence and the rigor and robustness of our programs, our students’ academic profile will be stronger and their demographics will reflect more diversity, with both becoming more comparable to our benchmark schools. We will be actively committed to attracting the most talented students and increasing the socioeconomic, racial and ethnic diversity of our student body. For undergraduate students, in particular, this will require more applications, lower admit rates or higher selectivity, and strategic use of financial aid. It also will require a five-year enrollment management plan with specific academic and demographic enrollment targets against which we annually measure our progress.

We furthermore must be ardently committed to nourishing and sustaining a vibrant culture of inclusivity leading to consistently high retention and graduation rates across all student demographic groups.

• How can we provide more integrated and flexible pathways into, through and out of St. Thomas in order to become more affordable to a broader range of students and families?

Fluctuations in student demographics and the economic challenges our students face necessitates that we rethink the pathways by which students come to St. Thomas, move through their education, and develop job-related skills. We must provide more flexible and less costly pathways for students to enter our programs, and more flexible delivery of curriculum.

We will partner with high schools and community colleges to provide greater opportunities for students to enter St. Thomas with more earned credits and shorter times to degree completion.

We will provide year-round learning opportunities that allow for accelerated time to degree for our undergraduate and many of our graduate programs.

We will creatively employ technology to expand our access and extend our reach in affordable ways. For example, students might be able to combine work and study over the summer through our on-line offerings.

We will improve our advising and career counseling and expand internship programming, effectively engaging alumni and businesses, especially within the Twin Cities.

• Finally, how bold will we be in charting our course towards this vision?

In keeping with the inspiration of our founder, Archbishop John Ireland, we must have the courage and conviction to be bold. This is a university that has never been afraid to be bold. We must let this infiltrate us at every level, and we cannot be stymied by “fear of failure.” We must actively nourish and sustain a culture of innovation in everything we do.

Imagine St. Thomas of tomorrow

So, as I conclude, please let me indulge myself for a moment and ask you to do an imaginary exercise with me. What will St. Thomas look like 5 to 10 years from today? I am a very visual person, so let’s imagine we are viewing a slide show and I am describing the images as they change. What do I see?

First, I see one university, St. Thomas – Twin Cities, with images of two locations and faculty, staff, and students frequently moving back and forth.

Next slide: a high school counselor is talking to a high school student about applying to St. Thomas and the fabulous experience of other students from this high school who are attending or are alumni of St. Thomas. Wait, this slide is rotating and showing the same scene in different locations – Minneapolis, Chicago, Beijing, Denver, St. Paul, Seattle, Oslo, Boston, and Riyadh.

Next slide: an avatar is approaching both of our Twin Cities’ locations. As she walks onto campus, she sees a diverse and global community of faculty, staff, and students. She sees talented and engaged learners, makers, musicians, and athletes. He has that experience of radical hospitality and feels the energy, warmth, and care. Interestingly, the avatar keeps changing identity and origin, but the experience is the same.

Also, the time of day, day of the week, and season of the year keep changing, but the energy and active living, learning, and creating continues at both campus locations. The buildings are multidisciplinary in scope and multi-purpose, and the people coming and going, whether physically or via technology, include St. Thomas faculty, staff, and students, as well as others from the Twin Cities community and well beyond.

Next slide: It is summer, and a group of students just stepped off an international flight and are approaching both campus locations for a 4-week stay of living and learning with St. Thomas faculty and students and interacting with the business and other organizations in the Twin Cities.

Next slide: It’s a crisp, fall Saturday, and high school students (or are they community college students?) are taking St. Thomas undergraduate courses. Some are sitting in classrooms in Minneapolis and some are connected via technology. Actually, the season just changed; it’s summer, and they are St. Thomas students living and working at home and taking online courses.

Next slide: I see a large gathering of lay and religious persons at our St. Paul location. It looks important. One is wearing a red sash. I see many of our faculty from several disciplines including theology and Catholic Studies, as well as other faculty from around the world, and some of our students. The discussion is lively and animated and I hear words describing important economic, political, and social issues of our time. The frame is changing, and the religious leaders include Catholics and other major religions, and the words relate to peace and understanding.

Next slide: I am leaving my Minneapolis office headed to the airport for several alumni visits. Wait I forgot my passport. It’s in my St. Paul office. As I walk down the corridors, I note the plaques and pictures of recognition and appreciation on the walls. They span our work with Catholic Charities, Catholic Relief Services and Catholic schools, include recognitions by Ashoka and other designations for our leadership in social entrepreneurship, highlight our contributions to eliminating the achievement gap in the Twin Cities, and include awards for the largest number of student start-up companies.

Final slide: As I rush off to the airport, the slide frame expands to include the entire Twin Cities. I see St. Thomas students and alumni everywhere. They are working, serving, learning, and leading in all types of organizations. The frame widens even more and I see Tommies actively creating a world of greater opportunity, justice, and care.

Conclusion

I conclude with a quote from our wise and visionary founder. At the end of the 19th century, Archbishop Ireland was asked to address a meeting of the United States’ bishops on what the future would be like. In his very oratorical style he began, “Oh, for the eye of a prophet to see countless generations into the future…” and he went on and on. But he ended with these simple words: “But no prophet’s eye is needed, for as we will it, so shall the future be.”

It is no different today. It is in our hands to create the future that we collectively imagine for St. Thomas, the Twin Cities, our country, and our world. “For as we will it, so shall the future be.”

An Adjunct Faculty Task Force has been appointed to begin work on concerns identified by adjunct faculty members, and a permanent Adjunct Faculty Council will be established during the fall semester.

Dr. Richard Plumb, provost and executive vice president, announced the appointment of the task force last week. Adjunct faculty members are:

Tom Becker, School of Engineering

Michele Braley, School of Social Work

Ann Brodeur, College of Arts and Sciences

Uyen Campbell, School of Law

Dr. Sheila Dickinson, College of Arts and Sciences

Rodney Hagedorn, Opus College of Business

Anne Howard, College of Education, Leadership and Counseling

Ken Kalamaha, College of Education, Leadership and Counseling

Marguerite Spencer, College of Arts and Sciences

Kim Sovell, Opus College of Business

Michelle Thom, associate vice president for human resources, and Dr. Paul Wojda, a tenured associate professor in the Department of Theology, are ex officio task force members. Plumb soon will name a second tenured faculty member to the group.

The task force will develop recommendations for establishing the council, addressing issues such as the council’s size, representation, eligibility, compensation, election process and initial bylaws. Plumb will review and approve those recommendations with the task force, which will cease to exist after the council is appointed. In addition, the task force will provide feedback to Plumb on any adjunct faculty proposals that need to be considered before the council is established.

President Julie Sullivan included the establishment of the task force and council as priorities after adjunct faculty who teach undergraduate classes voted in July against union representation. At the time, she outlined her vision of a task force and council, both of which will include representatives at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

“The council will provide a forum for adjunct faculty to communicate and interact with each other, identify opportunities for improving the situation of adjunct faculty beyond the already-identified priorities, and strategize ways of better integrating adjunct faculty into our university community,” she wrote in an email in July. “Ultimately, our goal is to provide adjunct faculty with a variety of participation options to meet varying preferences for levels of involvement at St. Thomas” and to create and sustain “an academic community through open and transparent dialogue where all members are respected, feel valued, and are focused on student learning and outcomes.”

Plumb said Thom is working with Human Resources staff on alternatives for adjunct faculty to participate in St. Thomas’ benefit programs, taking into account the range of their workloads. They have consistently identified benefits as their greatest need.

Plumb also is working with deans and department chairs on differentiated adjunct faculty contracts based on varying levels of participation; issuing contracts on a more consistent basis; developing a portal to review potential annual salary increases; and working with the Faculty Senate on adjunct faculty representation.

He is collaborating with Dr. Ann Johnson, director of the Center for Faculty Development, to provide greater funding mechanisms for adjunct faculty development and to design workshops for department chairs to share best practices on recognizing the contributions of adjunct faculty.

Please remember in your prayers Dr. Harry Webb, a photographer, filmmaker and associate professor of education whose association with the University of St. Thomas spanned half a century.

Webb had been living at the Minnesota Veterans home and in his final years had Alzheimer’s. He died Saturday, Aug. 16, at age 94.

Visitation will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday, Aug. 25, at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Hamline Ave. N., Roseville. His funeral will be held there at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 26. Visitation also will be held for an hour prior to the service; a luncheon will follow.

Born in 1919 in Philadelphia, where he graduated from high school, Webb served in the Air Force and later studied social science, communications, audio-visual education and photography at the University of Minnesota, where he earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate.

Dr. Harry Webb

By the time he came to St. Thomas in 1954, he already had been involved in the production of two dozen educational films covering subjects that ranged from trout to Seminole Indians. He was hired as an associate professor of education and director of the college’s Audio-Visual Center. As part of the job, he directed the campus film club and the photography department, which provided images for The Aquin student newspaper, the Aquinas yearbook and public relations.

A 1954 article in The Aquin introduced Webb to the St. Thomas community. “By spring, Webb hopes to have set up courses in photography and audio-visual,” the story said. “Because of the growth of still photography and films in business and especially in television, he feels that both these courses will equip students with useful tools for future vocations.”

Seven years later an Aquin article described another of Webb’s duties: filming football games.

“The football cameraman is hoisted up 40 or 50 feet where the wind velocity is three times that on the playing field,” he was quoted as saying. “I remember an impossible night when (Frank) Deig was coaching the team against Gustavus, away. The weather was so bad that there was no one in our stands and six on the Gustavus side. And there I was, up on the roof making films.

“It’s like holding your cheek next to an ice cube and watching the game through a keyhole,” he said.

While records show that Webb retired in 1995, he remained a frequent sight on campus for many more years. In 1998, St. Thomas published Faces of St. Thomas: Dr. Harry Webb Photographs 1954-1998, which he dedicated “To my dear wife, Lois, and to my colleagues who have taught me so much over the years.”

While Webb took thousands of photographs of St. Thomas life, the ones he selected for his book were formal or candid portraits of colleagues, many of them friends he had known for decades.

(Copies of the book are available free at the University Relations receptionist’s office on the fifth floor of Loras Hall on the south campus. If you’d like a free copy delivered via campus mail, call University Relations at (651) 962-6405.)

Mike Ekern, the university’s director of photography, said Webb was “an excellent photographer. The sheer volume of his collection and quality of his work, which included formal portraits as well as photographs taken during unguarded moments, shows how much he valued this place. The people here were important to Harry, and he took the time to photograph them.”

Ekern’s predecessor, Roger Rich, was hired by Webb in 1970 and spent the next 37 years taking photographs for the university.

“Harry was very friendly and he liked to spend time visiting with people before he took their picture,” Rich said. “He liked to get to know the subjects he was photographing. He also was very particular and took a lot of time setting up a shot.

“Years ago we’d set up very bright lights to take portrait shots. The lights created quite a bit of heat and the subjects would sometimes start sweating, so Harry had a makeup kit and would use pancake powder on them so they wouldn’t glisten.”

In addition to always wearing a bowtie, Webb also was known for the breakfasts he’d make in the office. “He made toast every morning, and sometimes he’d open a can of sardines as well,” Rich said.

Webb created many of the portraits of faculty members who were selected for the annual Professor of the Year Award. Those are displayed on the third floor of the Anderson Student Center, and many are included in his Faces of St. Thomas book.

Paul Hague, a longtime member of the English faculty, wrote in the forward to Faces of St. Thomas: “On the edge of the next century, the University of St. Thomas flourishes: new buildings, new courses, new directions. The future beckons. But to a small – and shrinking – band of faculty and staff, looking backward perhaps holds as much attraction as looking forward even to the brightest tomorrow.

“Harry’s pictures are a gift and a blessing to all who were part of an earlier St. Thomas. They are published here at a good time – before the memories fade.”

Bill Kirchgessner, a former member of the University Relations staff who worked with Webb on Faces of St. Thomas, wrote in the book that after coming to St. Thomas in 1954, “Harry quickly established himself as the number-one proponent for instructional media services and the advantages of using media in teaching.

“That got him into the classroom, where he forged strong ties and fast friendships with the faculty. It was this – that he lived and worked among these people – that enabled him to capture on film the rich, colorful personalities of the people who make up the St. Thomas community.”

Tom Webb, one of Harry’s sons, wrote that his father “was blessed with a long life — 94 years — and spent it looking at every glass half-full, usually with a smile on his face.

“He played a lot of roles in his lifetime: college professor, filmmaker, extraordinary photographer, delighted grandfather, amateur painter, overzealous pruner, World War II serviceman, book author, wacky food devotee and, especially, loving husband and father. Even in his final years, as his sharp mind was ravaged by Alzheimer’s and his world narrowed, he never forgot his bride of 60 years and their four children. And they never forgot him. I have been endlessly impressed by the love and devotion shown by my mother, and by each of my siblings, during my dad’s long and difficult decline.”

Webb is survived by his wife, Lois, of Falcon Heights; son Bill (Sue) of Edina, son Tom (Trevor) of St. Paul, daughter Nancy (Dennis) of Green Valley, Ariz., and son David (Julie) of Shoreview; a brother, Clarence, and sister, Jane, both of Philadelphia; and 10 grandchildren. His three sons hold undergraduate degrees from St. Thomas (classes of 1977, 1979 and 1985) and David holds a St. Thomas doctorate.

Mail ballots should arrive by today at the homes of adjunct faculty who teach undergraduate classes at St. Thomas, asking if they want to be represented by a union.

The ballots were mailed Thursday and must be received in the Minneapolis office of the National Labor Relations Board by 4:30 p.m. July 18 to be valid. They will be counted July 21, and the majority of votes cast will determine the result.

The NLRB mailed the ballots after Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 284 decided not to withdraw the election petition. According to adjunct faculty who oppose union representation at this time, 91 adjunct faculty signed letters or separately asked SEIU to withdraw its petition and allow them to begin discussions with St. Thomas.

President Julie Sullivan has said she believes more will be accomplished if St. Thomas works directly and collaboratively with adjunct faculty and without the involvement of a union that is not familiar with the university’s mission, community and culture.

“I want to thank adjunct faculty for participating in the constructive dialogue to date,” Sullivan said. “It has been important to hear firsthand about their concerns as well as the pleasure they derive from teaching at St. Thomas. I also appreciate the trust so many of them placed in me by asking the union to withdraw the election petition.

“At this time, I encourage all eligible adjunct faculty to vote – and to vote no.”

A St. Thomas website is updated regularly to provide information about – and resources related to – the issues and the voting process. Sullivan has shared her perspective during six adjunct faculty forums and various communications, including a video that she emailed to adjunct faculty last week.

Forum discussions

At the forums, which were attended by a total of 60 adjunct faculty, Sullivan said she knows many of them want higher compensation, benefits, more recognition and deeper relationships with her administration as well as deans, department chairs and tenured and tenure-track faculty.

Sullivan was asked during the June 30 forum whether adjunct faculty would lose their bargaining power if they voted “no” and did not have a union acting on their behalf. Would adjunct faculty be able to trust her?

“Absolutely,” she said. “My credibility is at stake here. … Everyone would lose respect for me if I didn’t work with you.”

John Morrison, chair of the St. Thomas Board of Trustees, told forum attendees that the board supports Sullivan “100 percent” and expects her to work with adjuncts to address their concerns.

Sullivan believes progress already had been made on issues before the election petition was filed May 23, and cited three examples:

Adjunct faculty have been involved in strategic planning discussions, which Sullivan launched in January. The Strategic Planning Steering Committee recommended in May that St. Thomas establish a university committee to develop policies related to adjunct faculty, including an equitable system for compensation and benefits, hiring and retention, classification, access to professional development, and evaluation and recognition of excellent teaching.

The College of Arts and Sciences, where more than 200 adjuncts have taught undergraduate courses since last fall, will increase per-course compensation by $200 (about 5 percent) effective in September. The increases were approved earlier this year.

St. Thomas approved free access to the Anderson Athletic and Recreation Complex, beginning June 30, for adjunct faculty with a current St. Thomas identification card.

Sullivan told the forums her opposition to a union has nothing to do with money or avoiding cost increases but is centered on the impact that collective bargaining would have on St. Thomas’ ability to hire the best teachers. She wants the freedom to provide multiple contracts, depending on an individual’s course loads, needs and interests, and to hire adjunct faculty who embrace and contribute to the university’s mission. She also fears she will lose valued adjunct faculty who have told her they will not continue to teach at St. Thomas if there is a union.

Voting eligibility

If eligible adjunct faculty do not receive a mail ballot by Tuesday, July 8, they should contact the NLRB regional office at (612) 348-1757 by 4:30 p.m. Thursday, July 10, to receive a duplicate ballot.

Adjunct faculty are eligible to vote if they taught undergraduate courses during the fall 2013 semester, January 2014 Term or spring 2014 semester or were contracted by June 6 to teach in the June or July 2014 summer sessions. Eligible faculty include part-time, nontenured and nontenure-track faculty who teach undergraduate credit courses or labs on the St. Paul and Minneapolis campuses and are identified by titles including (but not limited to) adjunct faculty, senior adjuncts, participating adjuncts, supporting adjuncts and adjuncts.

St. Thomas adjunct faculty who teach undergraduate classes are scheduled to receive mail ballots at their homes later this week asking if they want to be represented by a union.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) intends to mail ballots on Thursday (July 3) to 300 adjunct faculty, and must receive ballots in its Minneapolis office by 4:30 p.m. July 18 for them to be valid. They will be counted July 21, and the majority of votes cast will determine the result.

President Julie Sullivan will hold noon-hour forums on the issue today (June 30) in Room 366-367 of the Anderson Student Center on the St. Paul campus and on Tuesday (July 1) in Room 252 of Terrence Murphy Hall on the Minneapolis campus.

Forty adjunct faculty attended four recent forums with Sullivan, and she encourages others to attend this week’s forums to discuss issues related to the election and to hear her perspective.

“This is an important issue for everyone at St. Thomas,” Sullivan said. “I have enjoyed the opportunity to meet adjunct faculty at the forums, and we have had healthy discussions about whether a union is the right choice at this time.”

Sullivan said she believes more will be accomplished if St. Thomas works directly and collaboratively with adjunct faculty and without the involvement of a union that is not familiar with the university’s mission, community and culture.

She is urging adjunct faculty to contact Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 284 and ask it to withdraw the election petition before July 3, thus allowing adjunct faculty to continue discussions with St. Thomas.

“I’m just asking for more time to address the issues,” she told one forum. If her efforts to work only with adjunct faculty prove to be unsuccessful, she said, “then the union option always is there” because they could resubmit the petition after six months. A similar election petition was withdrawn earlier this month at Macalester College, while Hamline University adjuncts have approved a union.

If SEIU does not withdraw the petition by Thursday, Sullivan is urging adjunct faculty to vote “no” and begin discussions with the university. In that case, they could file a new petition after one year if they felt insufficient progress had been made.

Sullivan said she knows that many adjunct faculty want higher compensation, benefits, more recognition and deeper relationships with her administration as well as deans, department chairs and tenured and tenure-track faculty. Those objectives are worthy of discussion, she said, and she pointed to three examples of progress made before the election petition was filed May 23:

Adjunct faculty have been involved in strategic planning discussions, which she launched in January. The Strategic Planning Steering Committee recommended in May that St. Thomas establish a university committee to develop policies related to adjunct faculty, including an equitable system for compensation and benefits, hiring and retention, classification, access to professional development, and evaluation and recognition of excellent teaching.

The College of Arts and Sciences, which has had more than 200 adjuncts teaching undergraduate courses since last fall, will increase per-course compensation by $200 effective in September. The increases were approved earlier this year.

Effective today (June 30), faculty adjuncts will have free access to the Anderson Athletic and Recreation Complex as long as they show a current St. Thomas identification card.

Sullivan has told the forums her opposition to a union has nothing to do with money or avoiding cost increases but is centered on the impact that collective bargaining would have on St. Thomas’ ability to hire the best teachers. She wants the freedom both to provide multiple contracts, depending on an individual’s course loads, needs and interests, and to hire adjunct faculty who embrace and contribute to the university’s mission. She also fears she will lose valued adjunct faculty who have told her they will not continue to teach at St. Thomas if there is a union.

“For me, it’s all about our students and the quality of education we can provide them,” she told adjuncts at the June 22 forum. “It’s important that we have the ability to attract and retain the adjuncts who are the most passionate about teaching at St. Thomas.”

Sullivan urged all St. Thomas adjunct faculty to fully inform themselves about the issues. A St. Thomas website is updated regularly to provide information about – and resources related to – the issues and the voting process.

Voting procedures

St. Thomas encourages eligible adjunct faculty to ensure they receive a ballot on a timely basis by confirming the accuracy of their contact information, including home address and email address if they prefer a non-UST email, through the Murphy online system.

The NLRB has extended to July 3 the deadline for adjuncts to update their home addresses. If adjuncts have not received a mail ballot within a few days after July 3, they should contact the NLRB regional office at (612) 348-1757 by 4:30 p.m. July 10 to receive a duplicate ballot.

Adjunct faculty are eligible to vote if they taught undergraduate courses during the fall 2013 semester, January 2014 Term or spring 2014 semester or were contracted by June 6 to teach in the June or July 2014 summer sessions. This includes part-time, nontenured and nontenure-track faculty who teach undergraduate credit courses or labs on the St. Paul and Minneapolis campuses and are identified by titles including (but not limited to) adjunct faculty, senior adjuncts, participating adjuncts, supporting adjuncts and adjuncts.

Forty adjunct faculty members have attended four forums with St. Thomas President Julie Sullivan to discuss the pros and cons of having a union represent them.

Sullivan invited adjunct faculty who teach undergraduate courses to the forums on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday to discuss issues related to the election and to share her perspective, which she said is centered on “quality of education” issues. Two more forums will be held on June 30 and July 1.

“My personal opinion is that the university and adjuncts can accomplish much more if we work together directly and collaboratively” and not involve Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 284, she told adjuncts at the Tuesday forum. “I am asking you for that chance.”

Sullivan emphasized that St. Thomas’ adjunct population is quite heterogeneous and said a collective bargaining process with SEIU could lead to the union’s insistence on a “one size fits all” contract. That would restrict St. Thomas’ ability to continue to hire adjunct faculty who now come from a wide variety of backgrounds, have the best qualifications in their fields and are ideally suited to help carry out the university’s mission.

She said some adjuncts, particularly those who bring unique professional expertise to the classroom, have indicated to her that they would not continue to teach at St. Thomas if they were required to be a member of, or pay agency fees to, a union.

“For me, it’s all about our students and the quality of education we can provide them,” she told adjuncts at the Sunday forum. “It’s important that we have the ability to attract and retain the adjuncts who are the most passionate about teaching at St. Thomas.”

Sullivan made it clear that she highly values the role of adjunct faculty and will work earnestly to address their concerns. She pointed out that she already has made efforts, during her first year as president, to reach out to adjuncts and involve them in strategic planning while providing new benefits such as free access to the Anderson Athletic and Recreation Complex.

“I’m just asking for more time to address the issues,” she said. If her efforts to work only with adjunct faculty prove to be unsuccessful, she added, “then the union option always is there” for them to pursue.

Adjunct faculty at the forums raised concerns ranging from compensation and health care benefits to job security and stability. They said they want to be more involved in the day-to-day life of St. Thomas and be viewed as serious contributors to the university’s mission. One adjunct said he favors a union because the right “mechanism” isn’t in place to address issues.

“If we don’t have a union, how will we have a voice?” another adjunct asked at a Friday forum.

“That’s a good question,” Sullivan replied, “and the right question.”

She acknowledged the university can do a better job of addressing adjunct faculty concerns and suggested the possibility of establishing an Adjuncts Council. She said she recently received a recommendation from the ongoing strategic planning process that the Faculty Senate form a plan to include representation from adjunct and clinical faculty in the existing governance structure.

These are the kinds of relationship issues that are best addressed through open and transparent dialogue, Sullivan said, and not through a collective bargaining process.

“Let us try to address this as a community, including tenure and tenure-track faculty,” she said Sunday. “I have been here less than a year. Give me a chance to work with you to address it.”

Several adjunct faculty questioned the summer timing of the union election and noted how SEIU withdrew its election petition at Macalester College earlier this month to provide more time for discussion with colleagues and administrators. Under federal labor law, the only way for the parties to voluntarily delay the vote is for the union to withdraw the petition. St. Thomas also asked SEIU to delay the election until the fall semester, Sullivan said, but the union turned down the request.

“I feel this is being rammed down people’s throats,” one adjunct said at the Tuesday forum. Others said they have had difficulty reaching SEIU representatives to answer questions so they can make an informed decision.

The union is attempting to organize adjunct faculty around the country. The first Minnesota election occurred earlier this month at Hamline University, where adjunct faculty voted 45-17 in favor of SEIU representation for 83 members.

Sullivan encouraged all St. Thomas adjunct faculty to fully inform themselves about the issues and to vote. A St. Thomas website is updated regularly to provide information about – and resources related to – the issues and the voting process.

Sullivan will hold two more noon-hour forums with adjuncts – on Monday, June 30, in 366-367 Anderson Student Center on the St. Paul campus and on Tuesday, July 1, in 252 Terrence Murphy Hall on the Minneapolis campus.

Voting procedures

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) will mail ballots July 3 to the homes of 300 adjunct faculty who teach undergraduate classes, and must receive ballots in its Minneapolis office by 4:30 p.m. July 18 in order for them to be valid. They will be counted July 21, and the majority of votes cast will determine the result. There is no quorum requirement for the vote.

St. Thomas encourages eligible adjunct faculty to ensure they receive a ballot on a timely basis by confirming the accuracy of their contact information, including home address and email address if they prefer a non-UST email, through the Murphy online system. The NLRB has extended to July 3 the deadline for adjuncts to update their email addresses. If adjuncts have not received a mail ballot within a few days after July 3, they should contact the NLRB regional office at (612) 348-1757 by 4:30 p.m. July 10 to receive a duplicate ballot.

St. Thomas adjunct faculty are eligible to vote if they taught during the fall 2013 semester, January 2014 Term or spring 2014 semester or were contracted by June 6 to teach in the June or July 2014 summer sessions. The group includes part-time, nontenured and nontenure-track faculty who teach undergraduate credit courses or labs on the St. Paul and Minneapolis campuses and are identified by titles including (but not limited to) adjunct faculty, senior adjuncts, participating adjuncts, supporting adjuncts and adjuncts.

]]>http://www.stthomas.edu/news/adjunct-faculty-voice-concerns-presidents-forums/feed/2Educators will Gather May 8 for Talk by U.S. District Court Judge William Hayneshttp://www.stthomas.edu/news/educators-will-gather-may-8-talk-u-s-district-court-judge-william-haynes/ http://www.stthomas.edu/news/educators-will-gather-may-8-talk-u-s-district-court-judge-william-haynes/#commentsThu, 01 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000http://www.stthomas.edu/news/?p=143624

Judge William Haynes Jr., chief U.S. District Court judge for the Middle District of Tennessee, will discuss “Social Mobility for Diverse Communities” at the 17th annual Julian Parker Lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 8, in Opus Hall on the downtown Minneapolis campus of the University of St. Thomas.

The program will include a brief award ceremony for the Minnesota Alliance of Black School Educators; also, Haynes will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree from the university.

Haynes, 64, grew up in Memphis and received his bachelor’s degree in political science and history from St. Thomas in 1970. An African-American at the then mostly white college, Haynes was a popular student government leader who was nominated for the “Mr. Tommy” outstanding senior award.

He graduated from the Vanderbilt University Law School, where he rose to the top of his class and received the Bennett Douglas Bell Award for commitment “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly” with one’s God.

After serving more than a decade with the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office, he opened a private practice. In 1984 he returned to public service as a U.S. District Court magistrate judge. In 1999, at the recommendation of Vice President Al Gore, President Bill Clinton appointed Haynes as a U.S. District Court judge for Middle Tennessee, the first African-American so chosen. In 2012 he was named chief judge.

The St. Thomas honorary degree citation praises Haynes for his “intellectual honesty, conscientious patience and profound sense of fairness.”

The Julian Parker Lecture Series honors the former longtime chair of the Education Department and dean of the graduate school at Xavier University in New Orleans. Parker was a national leader on urban education and race relations. In the 1960s, he was instrumental in dealing with issues of race and diversity when he worked at St. Thomas in an exchange program between the national historically African-American colleges and private colleges in Minnesota.

]]>http://www.stthomas.edu/news/ust-news-march-12-2014/feed/0Opus College of Business Climbs in Business School Rankingshttp://www.stthomas.edu/news/opus-college-business-climbs-business-school-rankings/ http://www.stthomas.edu/news/opus-college-business-climbs-business-school-rankings/#commentsTue, 11 Mar 2014 22:43:33 +0000http://www.stthomas.edu/news/?p=141236

St. Thomas programs in business, education, law and social work are included in the Best Graduate School rankings published Tuesday by U.S. News & World Report.

The Opus College of Business ranks No. 100 among the 453 schools accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. The ranking is an improvement from No. 110 last year and No. 104 in 2012, the first year that Opus was eligible because of its 2010 accreditation.

In addition, U.S. News ranked the St. Thomas Evening MBA program No. 110 among the 310 accredited schools in the Best Part-Time MBA Programs category.

Other St. Thomas rankings:

The School of Social Work, a joint program sponsored by St. Thomas and St. Catherine University, continues to be ranked No. 52 among 206 graduate programs. U.S. News does not conduct a new social work survey every year; the last survey was in 2012.

The School of Law is No. 129 among 194 accredited laws schools, compared to No. 124 last year.

The School of Education, part of the College of Education, Leadership and Counseling, is No. 162 among 356 schools granting doctoral degrees.

The School of Engineering is not listed in the national U.S. rankings because it does not offer doctoral programs.

A Graduate Education Week at the University of St. Thomas, March 10 to 15, will provide prospective students several opportunities to learn about programs offered by the university’s seven graduate schools.

St. Thomas offers 57 graduate degree programs in its College of Arts and Sciences, School of Divinity, School of Law, School of Social Work, School of Engineering, Opus College of Business, and College of Education, Leadership and Counseling.

A grad fair will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, March 11, in Scooter’s, located in Anderson Student Center on the university’s St. Paul campus. The fair is geared especially for undergraduates who are considering an advanced degree.

An open house for prospective students of all ages will be held from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday, March 15, also in the Anderson Student Center. The event begins in Scooter’s with a welcome and overview, and continues on the second floor of the student center with individual sessions for each of the seven graduate schools.

An online chat option is available to connect prospective students with graduate school representatives throughout that week. The chatline is available from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday.

Dr. Paul Gavrilyuk, Aquinas Chair in Theology and Philosophy, College of Arts and Sciences, is the author of a monograph, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). The book will appear in Greek, Romanian and Russian in the years ahead.

“Florovsky’s Monograph Herzen’s Philosophy of History: The New Archival Material and the Reconstruction of the Full Text,” Harvard Theological Review 107 (2014), forthcoming. Published by Cambridge University Press in First View online format Nov. 15, 2013

“Orthodox-Catholic Dialog 50 Years After Vatican II: The Prospect and Promise of Full Communion,” presented at the International Conference ‘Ecumenical Theology and Hermeneutics in the Post-Modern Age’, Bose, Italy, Oct. 16-19, 2013

Dr. Amy Levad

Dr. Amy Levad, Theology Department, College of Arts and Sciences, is the author of Redeeming a Prison Society; A Liturgical and Sacramental Response to Mass Incarceration (Fortress Press: Minneapolis, 2014).

Dr. Manjeet Rege

Dr. Manjeet Rege, Graduate Programs in Software, is the author of “Feedback-Driven Clustering for Automated Linking of Web Pages” published in the proceedings of the eighth International Conference for Internet Technology and Secured Transactions, held Dec. 9 to 12, 2013, in London. The paper was well received and was invited by the conference organizers to extend and publish in a journal. He also wrote “Extending Space Colonization Tree Modeling for Artistic Control and Environmental Interactions,” which was published in the proceedings of the ninth International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications, held January 5 to 8, in Lisbon, Portugal.

James Rogers

James Rogers, Center for Irish Studies, attended the Southern regional meeting of the American Conference for Irish Studies held Feb. 14 to 15 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Rogers presented a paper titled “Sean Dunne’s The Road to Silence: An Anomalous Spiritual Autobiography?” His paper discussed a 1991 memoir by the Irish poet that records his estrangement and eventual reconciliation with Catholicism. Rogers also introduced the conference’s plenary speaker, Michael Gillespie of Florida International University, and he was one of the readers in a session called “Open-eyed and Full-throated: Readings by ACIS Poets.”

Gregory Sisk

Gregory Sisk, School of Law, filed an amicus curiae brief urging the United States Supreme Court to hear a case by a Minnesota band of Indians seeking recovery for breach of trust against the federal government. Read more about the brief online.

Dr. AnnMarie Thomas

Dr. AnnMarie Thomas, School of Engineering, is the author of the preface for the new book Textile Messages: Dispatches from the World of E-Textiles and Education (New Literacies and Digital Epistemologies. She and her work also are featured in the book The Art of Tinkering. As part of the launch for that book, Thomas and her daughter Sage (a graduate of UST’s Child Development Center) were asked to hack a copy of the book. Their hacked book is currently on display at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Thomas spoke at Stanford University Jan. 30 about how she balances her teaching and research with being a mother. Her talk also highlighted work that her research students are accomplishing in her Playful Learning Group.

“As his ALS progresses, Bruce Kramer welcomes silence — Bach, and ‘Tommy,’” Minnesota Public Radio, Feb. 20. Former dean of the College of Education, Leadership and Counseling Bruce Kramer is featured.

“Walk and talk therapy may be gaining ground,” Star Tribune, Feb. 24. Chair of the Graduate School of Professional Psychology Christopher Vye is quoted.

Opus College of Business

“Real Life Multimillion Dollar Real Estate Lesson for UST Students,” KSTP, Feb. 11. Opus College of Business students are featured.

Matthew Sanford and Dr. Bruce Kramer, two unique figures in the fast-emerging subject of mind-body consciousness, will meet on stage at the University of St. Thomas on Tuesday, Oct. 29, for a rare discussion about living and dying in our bodies.

Bruce Kramer

“Everything in its Place: Mind-Body Dialogues,” moderated by Cathy Wurzer of Minnesota Public Radio News’ “Morning Edition,” will touch on a wide variety of topics on the mind-body relationship, including disability, health care, mental health, caregivers and faith.

The event begins at 7:30 p.m. in Woulfe Alumni Hall of the Anderson Student Center on the university’s St. Paul campus. The program, free and open to the public, is being recorded for later broadcast by Twin Cities Public Television.

The evening is being sponsored by an alliance of several diverse departments, schools and programs across St. Thomas and St. Catherine University.

St. Thomas sponsors are: University Lectures Committee; Active Minds; College of Arts and Sciences; Communication and Journalism; Counseling and Psychological Services; Department of Special Education and Gifted Education; Disability Resources; Family Studies; Graduate School of Professional Psychology; Health and Human Performance; Leadership, Policy and Administration; Organizational Leadership and Development; Philosophy; Program for Neuroscience; Psi Chi; Psychology Department; Teacher Education; Theology Department; and Wellness Center.

Matthew Sanford

St. Catherine sponsors are the Henrietta Schmoll School of Health and Master of Arts in Holistic Health Studies.

Both Sanford and Kramer write blogs and speak publicly on the topic. Both use a wheelchair. Sanford has been a paralyzed from the chest down for the last 35 years. He is an award-winning author, health care innovator, yoga instructor and founder of the nonprofit Mind Body Solutions.

Kramer, former dean of the College of Education, Leadership and Counseling at St. Thomas, was diagnosed with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) in late 2010. He launched his blog, Dis Ease Diary, shortly after. Commonly called “Lou Gehrig’s Disease” after the famed New York Yankees player, ALS is a neurodegenerative disease affecting nerve cells in the spinal cord and brain, characterized by progressive weakness. Life expectancy averages two to five years after diagnosis.

With more than 70 blog posts to date, Kramer writes in personal detail about his life with ALS, often on themes of love, priorities, faith and friends. Wurzer has featured him on “Morning Edition” in the series Bruce Kramer: Living with ALS.

Cathy Wurzer

Kramer knows Sanford from taking adaptive yoga lessons through Mind Body Solutions. (Both can be heard together on this Living with ALS segment.)

While Sanford is Kramer’s yoga instructor, both consider the other his teacher. When Kramer introduced Sanford to faculty known to have similar interests, the potential for collaboration prompted the group to continue meeting.

The Oct. 29 public dialogue is one such collaboration. It is intended to encourage discussion of yoga, meditation, mindfulness and other mind-body practices among students, faculty and staff.

Sanford, author of Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence, founded Mind Body Solutions in 2002. The Minnetonka-based nonprofit helps people with physical disabilities become healthier, happier and more effective in meeting daily challenges.

Dr. Stephen Brookfield, St. Thomas’ Distinguished University Professor since 1992, has been named the first John Ireland Endowed Chair.

The chair is funded by the Office of Academic Affairs and is designed to remain in the College of Education, Leadership and Counseling. It is awarded to a person who has achieved a worldwide reputation for academic excellence and scholarly contributions in a particular field.

Father Dennis Dease, former president of the university, and Susan Huber, executive vice president and provost, had several conversation over the years about CELC’s desire to establish an endowed chair.

“Dr. Brookfield was selected as the first John Ireland chair for CELC because he fit the criteria to a T. He is an internationally recognized scholar who has an extensive and enviable list of both publications and presentations. He is a remarkable teacher who allows his pedagogy to inform his research and comes full circle by having his published research, in turn, inform his teaching,” Huber commented. “He also provides universitywide service through Faculty Development to assist faculty members in improving their teaching and writing and assists junior faculty, in particular, in getting their work published.”

Brookfield has held the chair since Sept. 1.

Dr. Stephen Brookfield

“As the John Ireland Endowed Chair I attempt to create a high profile on an international stage for the university through my writing and speaking. Within the university I take responsibility for mentoring faculty in their scholarship and research through workshops on scholarly publishing as well as numerous individual consultations. I also work to encourage faculty across the university to move to a learner-centered approach to their teaching, and to model a cross-unit, interdisciplinary contribution to the scholarly life of the community,” Brookfield notes in his curriculum vitae.Brookfield holds three degrees and two postgraduate diplomas from universities in the United Kingdom: Bachelor of Arts in Modern Studies, Coventry University, 1970; Master of Arts in Theoretical Sociology, University of Reading, 1974; and Doctor of Philosophy in Adult Education, University of Leicester, 1980. In addition, he holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Modern Social and Cultural Studies, University of London, 1971, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Adult Education, University of Nottingham, 1977.

He also holds three honorary doctoral degrees: the University System of New Hampshire for “Contributions to the Understanding of Adult Learning and Educational Practice,” 1991; Concordia University (St. Paul) for “Contributions in Shaping Adult Educational Practice,” 2003; and Muhlenberg College (Allentown, Pa.) for “Educational Leadership in the Scholarship of Teaching,” 2010.

Here, there and everywhere

Brookfield was born in Liverpool, England, in 1949. “My mom moved us south to Oxfordshire when I was about 14, and she was determined that her kids would grow up without a Liverpool accent,” Brookfield said in a recent interview, speaking in a softer, easier-to-understand accent than that of Liverpool’s other most-famous citizens – John, Paul, George and Ringo. (Brookfield plays in a punk-surf band – The 99ers – but its playlist does not include anything by Lennon and McCartney.)

Brookfield came to the United States in 1982 to take a temporary professorship at Columbia University in New York City.

“I was offered a really great position in ’82 in England, a very senior position, and I thought that if I take this position the rest of my career is settled and mapped out. At the same time, from out of the blue, I was offered a temporary position in New York – at a much less exalted status. I just got more excited thinking about working in New York for a couple of years,” Brookfield said. “So I took it just thinking it would be a working holiday, and then I just really liked living in New York. And then I met my wife and we started a family. She’s from Minnesota.”

The “temporary position” lasted 10 years.

Distinguished University Professor

With his children coming of school age, the family decided to move to Minnesota, and Brookfield began to teach at St. Thomas. “Here I am, 21 years later. I’m not going anywhere, either,” Brookfield said with a laugh. He teaches graduate students evenings and weekends in the College of Education, Leadership and Counseling.

Dr. Stephen Brookfield speaks during the 2008 Spring Graduate Commencement. He was St. Thomas’ Distinguished University Professor at the time. (Photo by Elias Adams)

In January 1992 Brookfield was named Distinguished University Professor. “The Distinguished University Professor role is one which you’re sort of on call to any school in the university to help them improve teaching. … And so the role was sort of a universitywide resource, and then also the idea was that the Distinguished University Professor would publish in such a way as to bring attention and prestige to the university,” he explained.

Brookfield’s curriculum vitae lists numerous fellowships and visiting professorships, 16 written, co-written or edited books (a 17th is scheduled for publication in early 2014), and 30 additional pages of book chapters and published papers, monographs and commissioned papers, articles in refereed journals, book forwards, book reviews, keynote speeches and selected consulting activities.

In addition, six times he has won the prestigious Cyril O. Houle World Award for Literature in Adult Education, awarded by the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education. In 2009 he was inducted into the International Adult Education Hall of Fame.

In 2008, St. Thomas presented him with the John Ireland Presidential Award for Outstanding Achievement as a Teacher/Scholar, and the Diversity Leadership Teaching and Research Award.

Across the universe of learning

Brookfield’s 16 books deal with various aspects of teaching or learning. Most are written for teachers to help them improve their teaching. But he is venturing into new territory with his 17th book – Engaging Imagination: Helping Students Become Creative and Reflective Thinkers. He is writing the book with a woman from the London College of Fashion in England, “which is a complete departure for me to write with someone from the field of fashion.”

“I’ve been exposed to lots of different ideas about using visual methods,” Brookfield remarked about the experience. “I’m a very word-based teacher and thinker. Even my PowerPoints tend to be lists of words. … And so I’ve been really challenged to convey ideas graphically and visually and diagrammatically, and to think about different ways that students could demonstrate learning which are alternative to the usual heavily text- or word-dependent methods like essays.”

Still learning? His reply is yes, whether it’s in the fashion world or in the classroom. “Are you kidding?” he answered, laughing. “I’m still learning – still learning about teaching and how to be a good teacher, still making what I feel are rookie mistakes. So one of my big interests over the years has been to experiment in different ways of finding out how students are experiencing learning, and then to base what you do as a teacher on the information that you are getting about students’ experiences week in and week out, and knowing when to change things, knowing when you’re roughly on the right track, and whether you’ve got the balance right between different methods.”

As the John Ireland Endowed Chair, Brookfield is available to help others in the university community to keep learning right along with him on that long and winding road of learning to teach.